Potomac Fever is the blog of the Hamilton College Semester in Washington Program.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Romney is having trouble drawing voters to the polls

Although Romney seems to be amassing a hefty lead in the primary and emerging as the only candidate who can challenge Obama, there seems to be one problem. In Florida and Nevada, the districts that Gov. Romney won showed decreases in voting from previous years. This is disapointing, but shows that most votes are against Obama and not for Romney. Although this is certainly the case, as most republicans feel as though they are voting for anyone but Obama, Romney needs to find something other than not being Obama to bring voters to the voting booths. If he combines a solid ideological idea with the anti-Obama feeling felt by many Americans, Romney may find that he would be in very good shape in this election- a similiar position to Obama four years ago, who utilized his message of 'Hope' and 'Change' (notice the quotations) and anti-Bush feelings to spring-board his way to the presidency.

1 comment:

It seems pretty clear at this moment that Romney will win the Republican nomination for certain, it is just a matter of when the other candidates finally drop out of the race. You are right to be concerned about decreased voter turnout in Florida and Nevada; I think that those lower numbers could grow into a serious problem for the general election. As many people have said in the past, Romney appears to have trouble inspriring voters to get behind him. It will be interesting to see if the more radical Republicans will actually rally and vote for Romney in the end, deciding that the anti-Obama sentiment is more important to convey than their dissatisfaction with a moderate candidate. With the Republican party so divided right now, it is tough to predict whether or not they can come together to defeat Obama after all.